Wiki / How it is played
Elements and components
Nine elements fall out of rock and five components never do; which rock gives what, where the parts come from, and why selling an element is the mistake you are allowed to make.
An element is what falls out of a rock that is not the rock. A component is manufactured: wrecks drop them, a shelf sells the plain ones, and no rock ever gives one up. Together they are the fourteen materials a bill at the bench and a skill grade is made of.
An element sells like ore, and that is the trap. A counter pays its value at the station’s ore rate and nothing for what a workshop would make of it. A pilot who sells their elements is selling their next tier for pocket change. Nothing stops you; finding out is part of learning the game.
The elements
Four kinds of rock - Iron, Silicon, Ice, Platinum - and each element comes out of some of them only.
| Element | Rarity | Out of | Value | Assay note |
|---|---|---|---|---|
ferrite_dust Fd |
common | Iron, Silicon | 9 | every hold’s sweepings; 356 cr on a Mining post’s shelf |
silica_gel Sg |
common | Silicon, Ice | 11 | a workshop’s filler; 598 cr on a Mining post’s shelf |
cryo_salt Cy |
uncommon | Ice only | 38 | why a miner learns which rocks are blue |
tantalum Ta |
uncommon | Iron, Platinum | 55 | takes heat; in every hull weld |
iridium Ir |
rare | Platinum, Iron | 170 | the first find a workshop takes seriously |
void_glass Vg |
rare | Silicon, Ice | 210 | silica fused in the Cinder; lens-grinders want it |
starmetal St |
exotic | Iron, Platinum | 720 | alloyed in a world’s death; no forge pours it |
null_shard Nx |
exotic | Silicon, Platinum | 880 | scanners log a hole; coil-winders want it |
belt_heart Bh |
singular | any rock | 4,200 | a piece of the old world’s core |
Value is credits a unit before the station’s rate. Whether a rock drops anything depends on its size - a bigger rock drops more often, and the deeper belts have the bigger rocks; what it drops depends on the ore and on luck, never on size or on which belt. Ice has no exotic.
A belt heart is the core of the world that was, scattered when the crust became the belt - so it can come out of any rock. No shelf sells one and no bench pours one. It is spent on two things: a name on an item at +9, which never comes back, and the last grade of the long skill lines - Extraction, Shield tuning and Gunnery.
The components
| Component | Rarity | Where from |
|---|---|---|
servo_array |
uncommon | threat-1 wrecks, or 250 cr off a Mining post’s shelf |
focusing_lens |
rare | threat-2 wrecks |
field_coil |
rare | wrecks at threat 3 and deeper |
singularity_core |
exotic | wrecks at threat 3 and deeper, more often the deeper you fight |
assay_seal |
rare | 4,000 cr off an Arms post’s shelf, as many as convoy lanes deliver there; never a wreck |
No counter buys a component, at any price: a part is a rung, not a paycheque. The rare half of any bill is never on a shelf at any price but the seal, and the seal’s shelf is only as full as the road to it. That keeps deep rock and deep lanes worth flying for, and makes the seal something a miner trades a fighter for. Mining and selling.